I don't think it's anyone's place to judge another person's taste...however the way ADs encourage a culture of "purchase with purchase" can force the less disciplined among us to buy a bunch of crap. A friend recently acquired a RO 50th anniversary without purchase history and told of the SA pushing Codes as a first purchase, unsuccessfully. If everyone learned to hold firm, the industry would not be what it is today.
Agree, that’s why I didn’t argue with him that I think it’s ugly. Just let the conversation progress to what we both think about that watch and it ends there.
Your point about the “discipline“ makes perfect sense, however it won’t happen because of the human nature to want to own something which is highly desirable to them. Only if the entire consumer market has that discipline, then only would the AD not been able to instil the purchase with purchase culture. For eg I can be perfectly taking my time to meet the min profile building requirements and not take the bait, however, the situation is evolving with time and not static. When the high profile buyers starts adding more and more purchases in a bid to get their hands on that coveted piece in shortest time possible, the AD will tighten the criteria for those particular models and the customers who has expressed an earlier interest in that coveted model would have been told that they need to make another purchase if they wish to get into the waitlist for allocation. The AD market and Grey market is totally different and what happens in the grey market doesn’t necessarily translate the same to the retail market.
Your friend’s experience with that AP purchase is more extraordinary and less of the typical situation. There maybe certain reasons behind it that you are not aware of.